


Buried in your bones there's an ache that you can't ignore

by flightinflame



Series: Marble and Mirrors [1]
Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Circus, Alternate Universe - Regency, Celebrations, Gen, Mutant Powers, Mutant Pride, Running Away, freakshow - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-09
Updated: 2020-09-09
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:35:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26373574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flightinflame/pseuds/flightinflame
Summary: He shouldn't be here. He shouldn't watch the mutant freak show. But watching the sheer celebration, the riot of colour and strangeness, he finds himself swept away.
Series: Marble and Mirrors [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1916608
Comments: 15
Kudos: 36





	Buried in your bones there's an ache that you can't ignore

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to Midrashic for betaing this, and triffidsandcuckoos for all her support while I planned this.
> 
> Title from "The Greatest Show" from the Greatest Showman, which was the exact atmosphere I'm going for here.

He shouldn’t be here.

He knows that, knows just how much he is risking by slipping away from the family estate. If Father knew, he would be furious. He’s told him so many times that he needs to be careful. And even putting that aside - this isn’t the place for nobility, among the common people, the crowd pressing in on all sides. His heart races.

It's intoxicating, breaking all the rules like this. Slipping away from the expectations of society, and finding his place among the rabble, with none of the pressures he is used to. They're crammed on wooden benches, laughing and joking and staring, and he stares as well, because he'd grown up with stories about what happened to mutants - how they were either taken for experiments, or sold to places like this.

This was meant to be a place of torment, of misery. It doesn't look like it is.

The crowd falls silent, and a man strides out. He's brightly dressed, with a rough face, and he bows to the assembled crowd. "Ladies and Gentlemen, it is a pleasure of mine to welcome you here tonight, to see some of the strangest and most bizarre mutants you've ever set your eyes upon. Now, I must warn you, some of what you might see can be shocking, horrifying even. So I must ask you not to faint. The people we have gathered pose you no threat as long as you don't touch them. I'm pretty sure they're all tame," he laughed. "And I must tell you, we've got mutants from all the corners of the earth today. All here to amaze and astound, to enthrall and horrify. But I feel we should start with a true spectacle. Something you won't ever have seen before, that you'll tell your grandchildren about. If you want that, let me hear you."

The rabble around him starts to cheer, and he finds himself swept up in the moment, calling out, all thoughts of proper behaviour whisked away. As he watches miniature tornadoes start out on the floor of the ring, circling and spinning, and then falling away at a sudden burst of smoke.

The ringmaster is speaking again, but at first he can't even hear the words. The crowd around him are cheering and shouting, and he is so enthralled by the image of the man before them that it takes a moment for the words to register. 

"- plucked from the fires of hell itself, I present to you, the demon Azazel." 

He watches in awe as the man teleports across the stage. He'd heard his father's friends speak of mutation, but he'd never heard of something this stunning, this unusual.

He braces himself for horror, for the torches and pitchforks his father had always warned would follow any interest in mutation, and yet instead the people around them seem interested. Excited. Curious. He can hear cheering and laughter, and it's intoxicating, to be part of something like this.

He stares as the devil moves around the room, turning to smoke and dust and reforming elsewhere. The clapping is raucous, almost deafening, and his heart sings with freedom.

Father had always said that any interaction with mutants would only lead to pain, would lead to him being cut open. Being here definitely is breaking all of father's rules, but at this moment he can't mind it. Anyway, this particular show has a veneer of respectability, driven by the fact that Lord Xavier himself has apparently invested in it.

With a particularly dramatic burst of smoke, the devil vanishes from the stage, and the ringmaster steps forwards, bowing low, and gesturing with his hands. As he opens them, three blades spring out on each hand.

"Now, while my amazing stars are preparing for the next act, I thought I could show you something very special - not something I show everyone passing through, something that's just for us." He winks conspiratorially, and the audience laughs. A beast of a man, with dark blue fur across much of his body, drags forwards a lump of wood. The ringmaster walks around it, knocks on it, and then brings the blades in his hands down on it, tilting them so that he cut the top then scored the rest. The two halves of the wood fall apart on different sides, and out steps a little girl, no older than four, whose features resemble the ringmaster's. She takes a deep bow, before she reaches for the blue-furred man's hand and lets him lead her away.

The show continues. A seemingly endless parade of oddities, of mutants the likes of which he never could have imagined. He watches a boy of his age, with a tail and deep blue skin, perform on a trapeze. He watches the see-through boy stepping forwards, standing there with all of his internal organs visible. He watches a beautiful winged woman, and one made of diamond, dance in unison. 

At one point silver birds fly through the air, as a gigantic metal elephant marches around the ring, and he's hypnotised, unable to even comprehend what it is that he was seeing.

There is no sign here of the fear he had expected, no hint of the pain he thought was a part of all mutants' lives. This is a celebration. The rest of the audience are as delighted as he is, cheering and clapping and whooping, listening to impossible feats the ringmaster insists is possible of every one of his stars. 

The grand finale is a spectacle like nothing he's even dreamed of, the mutants using their powers together, the ringmaster lifting up several of them to form an inverse triangle as teleporters bounce around, and a young man with strange eyes across his body scrambles up over them. The costumes glitter in the light of torches, and he feels like he is flying, swept up in their joy. 

He knows he will never forget this. That the nightmares he had always been told of weren't the only path for mutant kind, that there was hope. He would never let that be taken from him, the sheer sense of welcome and delight he feels as the ringmaster steps forwards and takes an exaggerated bow.

"Thank you all for coming, you've been marvellous and I hope we've shown you some things you never thought you were gonna see. Now, we're always recruiting for new mutants, so if any of you are stars in the making let us know. That's all for us tonight, but you've been the best audience we've ever had. Tell your friends, and come back soon."

The ringmaster bows, and so do the rest, and he's up on his feet cheering and waving and shouting himself hoarse, because this is a miracle. He thinks of all the stories he'd been told, the certainty they possessed. This is a different path, one he'd never imagined, one which reaches out before him. 

The audience spill out from the tent and onto the paths outside, steering clear of the caravans that the performers call home. He knows he might already have been missed, that if his absence has somehow escaped detection so far he certainly shouldn't count on it.

He watches the audience disperse, back to their ordinary lives, carrying the memory of this night with them like a shield from the pain of day to day. He knows he should leave. But he's made his choice. 

He slips around the back, pulling his heavy coat around himself. He hides out of view, and watching as the mutant freaks clear up the tent, watching as the see-through boy gathers the chickens together, as a little girl rushes around, talking to the various animals, and the blue trapeze artist teleports around the stage, gathering left behind peanut cartons. The devil stands in the embrace of a man nearly as handsome as he himself is, and this in a way is more magical than the show was.

He knows that the stage is faked, designed to draw in the crowds, to offer them a fantasy. But this isn't a show - this is these mutants spending time together, in their own space, not to perform but to carry on their life. It's incredible, in an entirely different way from the show itself.

He's still so nervous. He's not sure if this is a good idea, or if he should have left along with all the others.

He turns, considering leaving, and almost runs into the ringmaster. Up close, the man is shorter than he expected, leaning in and sniffing at him, and he stumbles backwards.

"What’re you doing here, bub?"

He knows he could lie, could say he got lost or something. But this is his chance, and he'll regret it if he doesn't take it.

"I'm... interested in joining your group."

The man looks him up and down, and he shivers a little, the pain that's as normal to him as air peaking with every breath. "This place is for mutie freaks, kid," He pauses, looking at him more curiously. "Show me."

He reaches for his shirt, fingers trembling as he undoes each button. This is it. A decision that he was never meant to take, a choice that never should have been his own.

"You okay, kid?" The ringmaster asks, and there's actual concern there. He nods, shrugging off his shirt, and starting with the buckles of the harness that means he spends each day in agony - the harness that means he can pass as human.

"My name's not kid. It's Warren." The harness falls away, and he feels his wings unfurl, released from their painful prison. "But I guess you'd call me Angel."

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Please do comment - there's so much I want to do in this universe, but I want to see if people are interested. All feedback gratefully welcomed.


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